Turley: Trump Making Same Arguments as Obama in Defense of Immigration Executive Order

Thursday on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour,” George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley reacted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold a stay by a lower to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting immigration to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

Although the court ruled in the opponents of the Trump order’s favor, the law still was on Trump’s side and that the Trump administration was using the “virtually the identical arguments” the Obama administration had used in defense of its immigration policy.

“Well, it was a poorly crafted executive order, and it was a terrible rollout,” Turley said. “But I still think that the law favors the administration once you get to the merits. I don’t agree with many of those, some of those cases. But the courts have been highly deferential to the president, and they generally don’t second-guess. I think the people also have to acknowledge that the Trump administration here is making virtually the identical argument to the Obama administration.”

“The Obama administration argued the president’s judgment on administration was largely unreviewable,” he continued. “He argued that he could even refuse or order the failure to enforce immigration laws. But the arguments were very, very similar. And for all the Democrats objecting now, I didn’t hear a peep of objection from them when just last year these arguments were being made by the same Justice Department.”